Writing and raising children in the leafy London suburbs

Poor Amber, having suffered with multiple wobbly teeth for the last month, making it very difficult to eat anything but soup!

She then lost three of those teeth in just seven days, leaving her with a mouth like… Well, like this!

She’s been very stoical about it though, helped by so many visits from the Tooth Fairy and a money box that is now very full.

The Lovely Melanie started a tradition of writing letters to the Tooth Fairy (in my day she just left the cash…) which Amber has been loving – her letters getting longer and longer. They began simply asking their age and name, before moving on to begging her to come and live with us!

It’s my fault: rather than simply reply with “My name is Vera and I’m 17” I started enjoying the story and adding unnecessary extra details.

As a copywriter I just can’t let a good story go untold… 🙂

So, the second tooth was collected by Titania, head of the tooth fairies, who was 307 years old and remembered collecting one of Queen Victoria’s teeth when she was just a little princess.

I had to dial it back a bit with the third tooth. Amber wrote a long letter begging the tooth fairy to come to stay with us and promising she would be very happy and well looked after if she did.

So this time a very young tooth fairy, Domino, had to explain how busy they all were collecting teeth and, as much as she would love to, couldn’t possibly come and live with us.

Still, it was worth it to see Amber’s face each morning when she read the tiny small letters I had painstakingly written out the night before, and hear her telling anybody who’d listen about Titania and Domino. 🙂

We all inhabit a house on the edge of London, and I make a living as a copywriter in the centre of town.

It's been a turbulent few years - tragedy struck early in 2011 when my younger brother died very suddenly and unexpectedly. We're still recovering from that.
My dad had a heart transplant in 2008. He's still alive and doing very well indeed.